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Roll Arena to celebrate 52 years of business

Roll Arena's back wall includes the year it opened, showing the Black family's pride in the business.

Roll Arena no longer offers a free skate, but focuses solely on private parties. A sign detailing party room rules is signed by Henry the Janitor and Polly the Party Girl.

The families pictures of damage following a 1982 fire at the Roll Arena are displayed on a board at the Roll Arena from two decades ago.

Polly Black, left, and Dixie Hill stand under the disco ball on the floor of the Roll Arena.

Polly Black, who will be 85 later this month, said she has been skating since she was a child, first down a country road on expandable skates that strap on over shoes.

The owner of the Roll Arena Skating Rink, 7340 W. 19th St., now welcomes skaters with a walker, but working at the rink has kept her young, she said.

She met up with Henry Black, a farmer from Hale Center who was busy trying to bring roller hockey to the South Plains.

Dixie Hill, the Blacks’ daughter, said Henry came back to West Texas and started the Lubbock Rolling Ghosts after building planes for World War II in California.

Hill said her father is in the record books for his efforts in bringing roller hockey to Lubbock.

“They were world famous,” Hill said.

“My parents met at a skating rink,” Hill said. Mutual friends decided two people so passionate about skating needed to meet, and they did at the Barrier Roller Rink, located on East Broadway across from Mackenzie Park.

Later, they bought the Palace in downtown Lubbock at 10th Street and Avenue J. They had the Palace from 1951-1957, Hill said. When they closed the doors and decided to move to West 19th Street — then in Carlisle — Henry Black decided to take the maple floor with him. The Roll Arena opened July 4, 1961, over Polly’s objections.

At the time, Polly said she thought no one would come to a rink in the middle of a cotton field.

Hill said she thinks her dad always had a knack for seeing where things would grow, and he was right about growth moving westward in Lubbock. People were willing to make the drive out to Roll Arena, Hill said.

Through the years, Henry kept farming, while Polly kept Roll Arena rolling. Henry referred to himself as the janitor, while Polly was the party girl.

Henry died in 2008. His obituary from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal said the family held a celebration of his life and a night of casual skating and fellowship in his memory at the Roll Arena.

Polly said she skated on the floor at the Palace as a 10-year-old, so the family knows it is at least 75 years old.

“Think about how old that floor is. It’s hardwood maple,” Hill said, noting that newer rinks have cement floors because it is too expensive to have a handcrafted wooden floor. “You can’t afford a floor like that anymore. That floor is our pride and joy.”

Hill said the Roll Arena floor has had a few famous people on it. She and Polly said Buddy Holly performed on it for dances a few times at the Palace, as he did at other rinks in Lubbock. Hill said Ritchie MacDonald of Lonestar also skated across the wooden floors at Roll Arena.

“We’ve raised a lot of kids at this place,” Hill said.

When a fire started as a result of a small television behind the counter shorting out in 1982, Hill and Polly said the community came out with mops to help dry the floor and get the rink back in business. While the ceiling has some charred marks on it to this day, Hill said it only took about six weeks to reopen the Roll Arena with the help of volunteers who let their kids skate while they made repairs.

Polly said that while the fire was a nightmare, the people coming out to help made it worthwhile.

“It was such a heartwarming thing,” Hill said.

The fire wasn’t without consequences. Fans melted onto the treasured maple floor. The family had kept a clear coat on it until then, but has since painted the floor a light blue, a task that Hill said is a family event once a year.

The rink is now open for private parties, charging $150 for a two-hour party of 50 people. Party times are available between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m., but Hill and Polly laugh when recalling when they used to do church lock-ins and sorority parties after 10 p.m.

Hill calls herself the janitor, party host, floor re-surfacer, taxpayer, party booker and manager of the Roll Arena.

Polly works with her as well, picking up skates and stacking them on her walker to be placed back on the shelves after every party.